It's pretty wild that this board (obviously a combo of informed insiders and casual fans) can see this thing falling apart but JW doesn't or is too green to the position to intervene. But, damn. Talk about being handed an amazing opportunity at a relatively young age (AD at a B1G institution) and letting your first huge move just crumble and not have the balls to do anything.
A significant part of why we're here is because JW is not "green" enough, $12 million not "green" enough to be precise.
Whitman has given Lovie Smith the opportunity to sink or swim with the team he hired him to build. I think that's the right decision, and even all this coaching chaos doesn't change the fact that we have a well balanced and experienced roster next year set to face a very favorable schedule.
However, one other hope of the Lovie era was building a culture of stability and professionalism in the entirety of the football operation. That hasn't happened, to put it mildly. Where Whitman does deserve some tough questions is in his management of that process. What happened to our huge assistant salary pool? Why was the Garrick McGee situation allowed to fester the way it did? How is the Miles Smith hire compliant with DIA, University, and state law policy on nepotism? He should have his feet held to the fire on those things, win or lose.
But anyway, as I was saying yesterday, what all of this provides us is clarity on where we stand. Maybe the roster maturing is going to turn the corner for us and we've got a few good years ahead of us. Or maybe not. But either way, the idea that we're "building" is over. This is not a professional operation, we are not executing a coherent, consistent strategy, we are not maximizing available resources toward future success. We're just whatever Lovie can personally cobble together on the day, so lets take a look at what that looks like and make our decision from there.